Epoch of Days

The France crisis was visible from space for weeks before it hit, like a blot on a map churning its way toward some helpless island port. Weather services beeped out bulletins; brave teams of scientists piled in a helicopter and flew toward the raging edge. Rain shredding the surface of the sea told the world that William Gallas was never going to survive a dune-buggy crash so that Patrice Evra could lead his men in peace. The Domenech-Anelka breakdown was just the first big wave to reach the shore. The rest was science. Within hours you had Gallas flipping off reporters, Evra calling for the heads of the traitors, Ribery and Gourcuff (supposedly) fighting on a plane, the team refusing to train, FFF officials resigning in disgust, Domenech reading out the players’ tennis court oath to the press, Ribery crashing French morning television, and Robert Duverne throwing a stopwatch at a bush. There was never any alternative. CNN was on the ground before the clouds rolled in. If Nike had been serious about writing the future of the World Cup, they could have focused the ad on France and made it half as long.

The Bible-thumping line here is that we should pay attention to teams that are actually scoring threats in the tournament, but everyone loves dancing and everyone cares about this. This Domenech video is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen, an amazing combination of melodrama, suicidal spectacle, and low-fi shock aesthetics that feels like it was ripped out of a Godard movie, right down to the strobe encoding and the weirdly echoing voice: Domenech for the little brother of the mean computer in Alphaville. There are clearer versions out there, but this one is true to the spirit.

Fredorrarci was on this days ago, at a point when it still seemed like the case would be judged on the pitch, talent wrestling against autodestruction like knights in a trial by combat. At this point, even that dream feels dead; whatever happens against South Africa, or between Uruguay and Mexico, this is a matter for cameras and words. A real run in the tournament might put the story back on the games (“they’ve come together”), but at this point, does it even matter if the team is underachieving? They’re fighting their coaches, penning statements, and tearing down their own federation; what difference does it make that they could play better than they’re playing? It’s part of the origin story, and it makes the conflict more devastating. But really, what’s important here is that they have history, and they don’t care.

What we’re watching, to blow up the point unreasonably, is the death of the last World Cup. The early days of this tournament are often about the past. We’re watching the teams we know, the teams we’ve seen play for championships, and seeing if their narratives will hold. There are new narratives, but we don’t know them yet, because the World Cup is the Zeus’s skull they’re about to leap out ofl. We’re curious about Chile, but France is what most of us know. And not just France, but the whole continuity that re-emerges every four years to see what will replace it or join it. If North Korea beat Portugal, they’re North Korea; for now they’re a blank line plus the memory of 1966. Italy are still “the defending world champions.” I caught myself speculating yesterday on whether the Dutch team’s style of self-undoing was in keeping with the old Cruyff style, and the Dutch haven’t even done anything to undo themselves yet. Look at how 1986, aghast, keeps crossing in front of the obsession with Maradona.

Now, on some level all events are equal, and the sum total of states of affairs is the world, but unless your way of organizing this is at least moderately radical, this France team grows out of Clairefontaine and ’98 and ’00 and is still the site of Domenech’s bizarre run in ’06 and the entire legacy of Zidane. That, and not how they played in qualifiers or how Malouda looked for Chelsea, is what’s crumbling here. Next time around, they’ll be something completely new. Again, you could see this coming, as Domenech probably did when he last traced the stars of Aquarius, but until it happened at the World Cup, nothing could make it real. The proof of which is: if, somehow, they’d defied the gods and won their games 3-0, all those hints of conflict would be vapors.

The counterweight to all this, and what makes it doubly fascinating, is that the future will be written at this World Cup. Nike can’t stop it or help it. It’s clawing its way out before our eyes, even if we don’t know what’s going to be important yet. Özil is changing the way the whole world thinks about Germany; “New Zealand 2010” just became shorthand for something. Chile won’t win, but I’m not ruling them out for a run like Turkey had in Euro 2008, lurking Brazil or no. It’s easy to forget this, but Lionel Messi is 22 years old and this is his first real World Cup. We’re in Africa, full stop. Pages are being turned, and in a way, the catastrophe of France is just a spectacular way to remind us of last time and to clear the way for what’s next. It’s like watching a ruin explode. Remember them; they were a marvel in their time. Hail that land of palaces.

Epoch of Days

France is merely acting out Artaud’s theatre of cruelty out in full view of the world: The players are the tip of the spear, revealing the truth that others obfuscate or do not want to see. England is remarkably similar, and perhaps Spain is as well, but as marginal , or in Spain’s case prohibitive, favorites they play a shell game that has a veneer of care.
This truth is, essentially, that the players don’t give a shit about this tournament. They play on the shell of a tournament that made their names, but they don’t need it anymore. They have domestic leagues and championships that provide them with a worldwide audience and great wealth. Artaud thought that society and the theatre were baroque, but empty, shells, and maybe, just maybe, that’s what this cup is for those teams. They don’t need this tournament, a distraction from what really matters- glory for the greatest clubs in Europe. For some players, some teams, this cup still holds real value, but for France, with a recent triumph in strong memory and players experiencing meaningful success at other places, the rantings of a strange madman and the pressures he insists upon are not worth the effort- for what? France gives up because this tournament means nothing, and perhaps England does as well.
The problem is that to England, effort is intrinsically tied to their self- worth, to some sense of subjective dignity and value, that they want to be loved, not necessarily to win, but to be loved. Rooney is a good illustration of this conflict- he looks like he would like to care, but is too exhausted to. They want some measure of approval that they may not receive- The Sun would sniff at a foreign manager’s triumphs if they did win. The people want them to care so badly that the players sympathetically take some of that care on.
France just illustrates what they’re thinking- this shit just isn’t worth it, and it doesn’t mean as much to them as it does a series of hard running New Zealanders for whom this is their only chance at glory. We’re on TV every week, with a team that cares, and this cup just isn’t fun any more, and not worth the problems we have to deal with every goddamn day. I’m going back to Lyon and taking a vacation, dammit.

@Joe H. I see your broader point, but if these players were indifferent, they’d go through the motions and not worry about the coach. Instead, they’re in the middle of a full-blown emotional collapse, and they can’t contain it or keep it to themselves. I buy exhausted, but I don’t really see detached.

@Richard Whittall This is a TV series that keeps going after the top-line star retires, absolutely. But there were other special players on those teams, surely? And on this one, for that matter, if they weren’t pinned down on barricades and waiting for Jean Valjean.

Brian, to pick up on Richard’s point, there were special players on those other teams (with the 06 version being the most relevant in this particular context), but none had the ability or authority to fill the tactical void created by the (completely necessary) jettisoning of Domenech’s tactical suggestions.

That was the lesson of Euro 2008, which the FFF failed to heed at the time, and which they are learning the hard way now.

@Brian Phillips I liked what you said about the World Cup being the end of the last World Cup. Perhaps this explains why the astrologer is still in charge, as if the FFF thinks that the penalty shootout was a dream, and – like someone who tries to return to sleep to rejoin a dream – they think they should keep everything intact as much as possible France, and then France would win. Except that the players knew someone was missing, and resented being trapped like this. Maybe Pires – in a dream-like twist – will show up.